Iain Patterson – the new Senior Reporting Officer at the Pension Dashboard Program

The appointment of a new Senior Reporting Officer (SRO) to the Pension Dashboard Program is long overdue. When Laura Trott announced by  a dashboard reset on March 2nd 2023,  her parliamentary statement included

Given these delays, I have initiated a reset of the Pensions Dashboards Programme in which DWP will play a full role. The new Chair of the Programme Board will develop a new plan for delivery.

Hector Sants was the original chair of MaPS and thus the PDP and Sara Weller has succeeded him. Paul Maynard has succeeded Laura Trott who succeeded Alex Burghaff who succeeded Guy Opperman, all in the space of a year.,

Oliver Morley has succeeded Caroline Siarkiewicz as CEO of MaPS. The only public point of continuity at the Pension Dashboard Program has been Chris Curry – he will remain involved as Principal and industry liaison officer, but he is no longer responsible for the PDP’s performance.

MaPS itself has moved its operation from Holborn Circus to Bedford, its executive is not in the DWP’s Caxton House in Westminster. The stage is set for the new kid on the block – Iain Patterson

Rather than rely on the PDP press release, I will quote from Iain’s linked in profile

An outstanding Digital and Technology C level Executive with a reputation for strong leadership combined with extensive board level experience and an exceptional record of success within major public and private sector organisations; leading large IT divisions, 2000 plus, on a global scale and directing some of the country’s most significant Transformation, Digital and Infrastructure initiatives.

Delivering Digital Transformation through technology, whilst maintaining operational integrity, with strong operational and commercial acumen, aware and conversant in modern and emerging technology trends.

A politically sensitive and credible ambassador at the most senior level with exceptional commercial, negotiation and communication skills and the ability to effectively manage a wide range of stakeholder relationships including Government and Industry representatives, Ministers, leading US technology suppliers, and well respected amongst the technology, system integrator and Consultancy practices on a Global Level.

And connected to Richard Smith.

Too long in the wait

My thoughts on the lack of leadership at the PDP are available at the bottom of this page, great guy that Chris Curry is, he does the job par-time.

The appointment of a genuine technologist has been long overdue. This is a technology project first , a pension project second. The pension industry will have to adapt to the needs of the pension dashboard program because people not pensions come first.;

It has been totally unfair on Chris Curry, that he has been left holding the technology brief when he is not a specialist and downright negligent of DWP to have taken a year to implement the change in executive promised last March.

Oliver Morley now has some cover and Chris can continue to be the friendly face of the dashboards but you have to ask some serious questions about prioritisation here.

What of the MaPS non-commercial pensions dashboard?

There are a number of questions outstanding on dashboards which are already five years late.

We have no confirmed dashboard available point (DAP) nor will we till we have more confidence that the staging guidelines are going to be properly complied with. It is one thing to get the big guns into place, we know from auto-enrolment that staging the long tail of smaller data suppliers is the big task. This will be one of Patterson’s task to scope.

We have had little or no news of the MaPS non commercial dashboard which seems to have been relegated to an after thought. The PDP press release announcing Patterson’s arrival states

Government has committed to facilitating the pensions industry to develop this initiative and have given specific responsibilities to the Money and Pensions Service (MaPS) which include:

• bringing together a programme team to lead the implementation of pensions dashboards

• appointing an industry steering group to set the strategic direction of the programme

• beginning work to create and run a non-commercial pensions dashboard – the MaPS dashboard (my bold)

I don’t know how long it takes to build a dashboard but I suspect from this that there is plenty of work to be done at MaPS if its dashboard is to launch by the current estimate for connectivity completion (31st October 2026).

MaPS needs a pension success story

The FCA’s recent publication of MaPS Pension Wise’s decreasing influence on at retirement decision making , the delays on the pension dashboard and the decline of TPAS from industry leading to inconspicuous are symptoms of a sorry decline in pension support from the Government.

Pension Wise influence is illustrated as the orange block

Oliver Morley inherited an organisation with one misfire of a CEO and another who had ongoing health problems that prevented her functioning as it should. He comes from the PPF, possibly the best funded arms length body in Government and is now very much in the public eye.

The appointment of Iain Patterson gives him and MaPS some much needed cover, but it will not relieve MaPS of responsibility for non-delivery. So far the Pensions Dashboard Program has been a great let-down to the British public, it needs to put a better forward and let’s hope Iain Patterson’s appointment marks a stepping up in gear.